Bush Says He Would Back Donald Trump as Presidential Candidate

On Thursday, Jeb Bush said he would support fellow GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump if he were to win the nomination of the party for the presidential election in 2016 and Hillary Clinton is the nominee of the Democrats.

Asked if he would give his support to Trump as the nominee for the Republicans against Clinton in November of 2016 Bush replied, “Yes, of course.”

Bush said the party must be unified and needs to win. The former governor of Florida said this one day after Trump said on the same show he would support Bush in a race against Clinton.

Trump and Bush have engaged in public attacks of one another as they attempt to win their party’s nomination.

Trump has taunted Bush for weeks. Bush is one of Trump’s closest rivals in the opinion polls in the large GOP field.

The businessman and personality on television has mocked his opponent as being low energy and criticized him this week for answering questions in Spanish.

Bush’s campaign initially avoided engaging with Trump in a war of words. However, on Wednesday Bush advisors signaled an effort to fight back with social media and campaign ad efforts.

On Thursday, Bush was upset with tactics by Trump and called on his rival to tone the attacks down.

Trump has been making controversial remarks over immigration and Hispanics. Bush, who is married to a Mexican woman, has said that diversity adds great vitality to the U.S.

Bush said he believes that Trump is attempting to insult his way to the White House but that will not work. People want a message that is hopeful and uplifting.

The most recent national polls that were released on Tuesday show that Trump has support amongst 31% of the Republicans who are self identified, with Bush have close to 12% which puts him behind Ben Carson the former neurosurgeon.